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“Having a roof, being calm, breaking the loneliness”: at 60, Isabelle remembers very well the triptych that led her to move into a boarding house, a little-known system on which the government is banking in the face of the increase precariousness.
“I had severe depression, was unable to work and my rent was expensive“, says this resident of the Rivages pension, located in the 17th arrondissement of Paris and managed by the Little Brothers of the Poor.
“The social worker offered me a family pension and I accepted. It allows me to have a safe, quiet place to live, to break my loneliness by sharing good times.“, she emphasizes.
Born at the end of the 1990s, family pensions allow vulnerable people or people in precarious situations to have access to private housing but also to activities and common spaces.
Unlike emergency accommodation centers, the residents who live there – they are all over 50 – are here for the long term. Currently, nearly 24,000 people are housed in this type of structure.
At the Rivages du 17e pension, where 24 people live – 7 women and 17 men aged 52 to 78 – the rent is between 480 and 580 euros for a studio. Social and health support is also provided.
Among the residents, people who have lived on the street, retired people, beneficiaries of AAH (disabled adult allowance) or RSA (active solidarity income) and people still working.
“Here, they know that they are not alone, they are surrounded“, underlines Yvonne Suisse-Berthier, responsible for the structure. “it’s a real added value for those who are sick“.
Good in his body, good in his head!
“I breathe”
“One of the people has pretty serious cancer. Before she lived here and there, it was quite complicated for her to follow her chemotherapy“, she says. “Once she got here, she said: +That’s it, I’m breathing. I know I have a place of my own, I can rest+“.
George is breathing too. At 64, this Colombian, who worked in construction for a long time, left his belongings in the pension after more than two years of wandering between different temporary accommodation centers. He confides that he can see himself “ending his life here”.
For the new Minister in charge of Housing Valérie Létard, the family pension is a “proven model” and which has proven to be a “a real tool in the fight against exclusion by offering residents a place to rebuild their lives“.
In its 2018-2022 “Housing First” plan, the executive had set the objective of creating 10,000 new places over 5 years throughout the territory. A target of 10,000 additional places has been set for the second plan “by 2027”.
“The target has not been completely achieved”, recognizes Valérie Létard who mentions the “7,210 places created under the first plan“.”But this is still a 48% increase in the existing stock at the end of 2016.“.
On the ground, associations say they still come up against the ignorance of certain local elected officials who slow down approval procedures – obstacles documented in 2023 by the interministerial direction of public transformation.
In a report, it noted that more than one in two elected officials said they were not aware of the system. Were also pointed out “a lack of motivation to open places, linked in particular to certain preconceptions and perceptions” as well as “practical difficulties”, particularly financial, in the creation of new structures.
According to the Abbé Pierre Foundation, some 330,000 people are homeless in France and some 21,500 households have been evicted from their homes in 2023, a figure up 23% over one year.